Pinch Harmonics

Forest-of-October

Here comes the apple, zed
Oct 13, 2005
220
0
16
Vancouver Island.
Ok so heres the thing. I would really just like some tips from those of you have mastered this technique. I know how to do them, and I can make the sound every time, but what I cant do is really make that brutal screeching noise. Mine sort of sound like feed back, nothing special at all. Keeping in my mind I am fully utilizing my amps gain (if that has anything to do with it)
 
Half of it is about where you do the actual pinch harmonic as well as how you treat the string with your fretting hand.

Generally, the closer you do a pinch harmonic to the bridge of the guitar, the higher pitched the sound is. So just find the closest harmonic to the bridge, do it and then just rip a huge bend or vibrato, or whammy flutter or whatever you can afterwards.

Also, use the bridge pickup, because that gives a better response on upper harmonics.
 
OOH finally a question for me (I Pwn N00bs at pinching) Let's see... basically for every harmonic (at least on my guitar), the higher the note you do it on means the closer to the bridge you have to pluck. Usually, you should go more than mid-way because the harmonic is actually the same note and it sounds trippy... Also small string gauges are more difficult to do it on, yet big ones present really no sound. I mostly do it on my A string (.32) and my largest plain string (.14) those seem to work the best. It is possible on the D string, but you have to be a strong plucker.
 
Tubbs Mcgee said:
ROFLMMFAO Yes I know you can pinch on every string, I'm just saying some strings are more difficult than others! (Supposedly for fat fucks like me)



Well it's harder because you have super obese fingers :P
 
Bend those fucking strings at the same time man and youll be pulling zakk wylde harmonics in no time. heres something cool. Play a 4 note decending legato riff on one string, in any key and mode, but hit the firse note with a pich harmonic before pulling off. Do it really fucking fast and itll keep the harmonic for all four notes. Its pretty wicked.